PC: More Battenberg-type families?

Kellan Sullivan

By this I mean that the children/descendants of a morganatic marriage manage to climb their way back to marrying into the highest levels of the royal hierarchy.

I'm unaware that any other fruit of a morganatic marriage managed to do this to the extent that the Battenbergs were able to do this.

I'm not talking about families like the Medici or Thurn und Taxis or Eggenburg who "married up". Also disqualified are matches like Edward IV, Henry VIII or James II or the Mazarinettes since either morganatic marriages didn't exist under English law or that aside from Laura Martinozzi none of the Mazarinettes managed to equal this.

It's also impossible to say that this was simply due to Queen Victoria's "court Battenbergism", since other "domesticated" royals, like the Gleichens or the Tecks (for instance) never matched the Battenberg heights. The only other equivalents I can think of would be the Oldenburgski's in Russia (Beauharnais/Romanovsky are disqualified because that's marrying up, not down; Mecklenburgski is more in the Teck category of not living up to the potential).

So, the question is: are there any other plausible candidates for Battenberg-type equivalents? The Tecks managed to get close, with Queen Mary's nephew being proposed for Queen Juliana before his untimely demise. But ultimately, both they and the Gleichens fell short of the mark.
 

Nuraghe

Kellan Sullivan said:
By this I mean that the children/descendants of a morganatic marriage manage to climb their way back to marrying into the highest levels of the royal hierarchy.

I'm unaware that any other fruit of a morganatic marriage managed to do this to the extent that the Battenbergs were able to do this.

I'm not talking about families like the Medici or Thurn und Taxis or Eggenburg who "married up". Also disqualified are matches like Edward IV, Henry VIII or James II or the Mazarinettes since either morganatic marriages didn't exist under English law or that aside from Laura Martinozzi none of the Mazarinettes managed to equal this.

It's also impossible to say that this was simply due to Queen Victoria's "court Battenbergism", since other "domesticated" royals, like the Gleichens or the Tecks (for instance) never matched the Battenberg heights. The only other equivalents I can think of would be the Oldenburgski's in Russia (Beauharnais/Romanovsky are disqualified because that's marrying up, not down; Mecklenburgski is more in the Teck category of not living up to the potential).

So, the question is: are there any other plausible candidates for Battenberg-type equivalents? The Tecks managed to get close, with Queen Mary's nephew being proposed for Queen Juliana before his untimely demise. But ultimately, both they and the Gleichens fell short of the mark.
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I admit that I am not in my primary field of knowledge, but perhaps we could compare the various relatives of the pontiffs ( who all made more or less important marriages, in particular the Borgias, della Rovere - Riario, the Farnese, the counts of Tusculum, even the Cybos managed to obtain their personal fiefdom, but I would also include the great Roman and Genoese aristocratic families in the list ) or the royal bastards ( in particular I am thinking of a Juan of Austria who survived 1578 or of the popular branch of the Medici or Manfredi of Sicily ), for the rest unfortunately I cannot find at the moment other examples vaguely similar to the Otl situation of the Battenbergs, certainly none of them ALMOST ever had a royal marriage, but they were influential enough to easily obtain a princely marriage
 
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Jan Olbracht

Kellan Sullivan said:
By this I mean that the children/descendants of a morganatic marriage manage to climb their way back to marrying into the highest levels of the royal hierarchy.

I'm unaware that any other fruit of a morganatic marriage managed to do this to the extent that the Battenbergs were able to do this.

I'm not talking about families like the Medici or Thurn und Taxis or Eggenburg who "married up". Also disqualified are matches like Edward IV, Henry VIII or James II or the Mazarinettes since either morganatic marriages didn't exist under English law or that aside from Laura Martinozzi none of the Mazarinettes managed to equal this.

It's also impossible to say that this was simply due to Queen Victoria's "court Battenbergism", since other "domesticated" royals, like the Gleichens or the Tecks (for instance) never matched the Battenberg heights. The only other equivalents I can think of would be the Oldenburgski's in Russia (Beauharnais/Romanovsky are disqualified because that's marrying up, not down; Mecklenburgski is more in the Teck category of not living up to the potential).

So, the question is: are there any other plausible candidates for Battenberg-type equivalents? The Tecks managed to get close, with Queen Mary's nephew being proposed for Queen Juliana before his untimely demise. But ultimately, both they and the Gleichens fell short of the mark.
Click to expand...
I wonder: if male line descendants of Karl of Burgau were still around in first half of 18th century (assuming very tight butterfly net) could they marry back into Imperial Habsburg line?
 

Kellan Sullivan

Nuraghe said:
who all made more or less important marriages, in particular the Borgias, della Rovere - Riario, the Farnese, the counts of Tusculum, even the Cybos managed to obtain their personal fiefdom,
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Unfortunately, they fall under the "marrying up" (Medici) example.

Jan Olbracht said:
I wonder: if male line descendants of Karl of Burgau were still around in first half of 18th century (assuming very tight butterfly net) could they marry back into Imperial Habsburg line?
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This or the surviving line of one of the Juan's of Austria like @Nuraghe mentioned are more along the lines I was thinking. Karl marries Sibylle earlier (not sure why there was a delay) or Catherine of Lorraine or Anna de Medici or Giulia d'Este (all were proposed for he or his father OTL) and leaves legitimate issue. While the issue are not Habsburgs, they could probably make their fair share of "decent" marriages or marry back into the main line (in Spain, where they don't have morganatic marriages) if need be
 

Welshroyalhistory

Kellan Sullivan said:
By this I mean that the children/descendants of a morganatic marriage manage to climb their way back to marrying into the highest levels of the royal hierarchy.

I'm unaware that any other fruit of a morganatic marriage managed to do this to the extent that the Battenbergs were able to do this.

I'm not talking about families like the Medici or Thurn und Taxis or Eggenburg who "married up". Also disqualified are matches like Edward IV, Henry VIII or James II or the Mazarinettes since either morganatic marriages didn't exist under English law or that aside from Laura Martinozzi none of the Mazarinettes managed to equal this.

It's also impossible to say that this was simply due to Queen Victoria's "court Battenbergism", since other "domesticated" royals, like the Gleichens or the Tecks (for instance) never matched the Battenberg heights. The only other equivalents I can think of would be the Oldenburgski's in Russia (Beauharnais/Romanovsky are disqualified because that's marrying up, not down; Mecklenburgski is more in the Teck category of not living up to the potential).

So, the question is: are there any other plausible candidates for Battenberg-type equivalents? The Tecks managed to get close, with Queen Mary's nephew being proposed for Queen Juliana before his untimely demise. But ultimately, both they and the Gleichens fell short of the mark.
Click to expand...

Well there were lots of morganatic branches all over continental Europe just waiting to make an attractive match.

I agree with you the success of the Battenbergs or the Tecks cant be attributed solely to Queen Victoria but she was definitely the primary factor - she held a lower standard for spouses than any of her contemporaries. It helped that

i) the father of the Battenberg branch was well connected and remained on excellent terms with his family, his sister was Tsarina of Russia, his nephew Alexander III etc and
ii) the Battenberg were considered extremely good looking, dashing etc. Victoria loved

It was often said that Mary of Teck would have managed to struggle to capture a younger son of a German duke due to her background yet Victoria was determined for her to marry her grandson and future heir to the throne so Mary's own character played a massive part and enabled her to overcome her mother's terrible reputation and her father's ancestry.

Its unthinkable in any other major Court - Alice of Albany recounts in her autobiography at the wedding of the Kaiser's daughter in 1913 she was sat apart from her husband as she was an HRH and he not one.
 

Nuraghe

Jan Olbracht said:
I wonder: if male line descendants of Karl of Burgau were still around in first half of 18th century (assuming very tight butterfly net) could they marry back into Imperial Habsburg line?
Click to expand...


Kellan Sullivan said:
Unfortunately, they fall under the "marrying up" (Medici) example.


This or the surviving line of one of the Juan's of Austria like @Nuraghe mentioned are more along the lines I was thinking. Karl marries Sibylle earlier (not sure why there was a delay) or Catherine of Lorraine or Anna de Medici or Giulia d'Este (all were proposed for he or his father OTL) and leaves legitimate issue. While the issue are not Habsburgs, they could probably make their fair share of "decent" marriages or marry back into the main line (in Spain, where they don't have morganatic marriages) if need be
Click to expand...


Technically this reasoning would also apply to the various illegitimate children of Maximilian or Henry Fitzroy, right ?, then the possibilities are many, even if now I am imagining a hypothetical marriage between the bastard daughters of Louis XIV / Charles II and a descendant of Charles of Burgau or Juan of Austria, it would be very funny, now turning serious for the moment, I can see a possible marriage with the imperial family, only in the case of an heiress on the part of the former ( a sort of MT in reverse ) with Vienna or Madrid who decide to marry one of their cadets, to prevent any territorial patrimony from falling into hostile hands to the Habsburgs
 

Vitruvius

Karl of Burgau is the best one I can think of. Or maybe the Counts of Wartenberg, if that line continued it could inherit something down the way.
 

Kellan Sullivan

Nuraghe said:
Technically this reasoning would also apply to the various illegitimate children of Maximilian or Henry Fitzroy, right ?,
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theoretically. Although I'm leaning more towards children who are "legitimate, but not dynastic"

Vitruvius said:
Karl of Burgau is the best one I can think of. Or maybe the Counts of Wartenberg, if that line continued it could inherit something down the way.
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forgot about the Wartenbergs. Another one I forgot about the Lowensteins (who were another morganatic line of the Wittelsbachs)
 

Jan Olbracht

House of Luxembourg may not be exactly what OP meant, but they fell back into obscurity after death of HRE Sigismund. I wonder whether cadet branches could rise into prominence again?
 
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